Surviving The Game

Description:In the world of software, product development is hard, and game development is even harder. The mobile software market is no longer a frontier. Large game publishers have joined the fray, bringing with them multi-million dollar budgets and dedicated advertising campaigns. As smaller game companies struggle to survive and larger ones consolidate in an effort to compete better, nobody in their right mind would get into game development now.

A Bil-centric view of product development

Description:Essentially, given an extraordinarily gifted developer - take Bil, our CTO -, there are things outside his area of expertise that he's recognized as hugely important to making a great app. He wants these people and things because they help him make something even greater: great design, great QA, support, the ability to reach a huge number of users (strong brand, really useful app, great content, etc)

While Nobody is Looking

Description:There is a natural pull towards focussing on the visual design of an application. Your choice of color, typography and structure all directly impact how your user will experience your app. But what happens when your user isn’t looking? Designing applications for use by increasingly distracted users requires thinking about your customer from a completely different perspective. Building on lessons learned from years of building audio focused applications these are some guides for ensuring your design is usable in ANY context.

Red Meat and Gin

Description:Bare Bones Software are widely recognized as one of the longest-lived indie Mac developers, having been in business since 1993. Their longevity stems from how they handle matters that Rich will cover in the talk: product concept, engineering discipline, customer service and support, ecosystem relations, living with Apple, and dealing with the unpredictable.